TVM by far the most popular station in summer

TVM, the state television station, registered the highest audience score last summer, winning half the audience and maintaining its popularity.

A survey conducted for the Broadcasting Authority by the National Statistics Office showed that for the June to September period, TVM's highest audience share reached 50.5 per cent, which was registered on Tuesdays.

Super One TV registered a 13.8 per cent share, while Net TV had a 4.1 per cent share.

Asked if they had a preferred station, 22.5 per cent of respondents said no.

However, 16.2 per cent declared TVM was their preferred station, followed by Super One TV (14.4 per cent). Whereas TVM attracted more males than females, Super One TV and Net TV attracted a predominantly female viewership.

Once again, news and current affairs programmes were the most popular (91 per cent), followed by the weather report (84.1 per cent), plays or drama (76 per cent) and discussion programmes (69.7 per cent).

Males preferred sports while all other programmes had an equal viewership between genders or else more females watching them. The survey indicated that people watch television mostly between 7 and 8.30 p.m.

Regarding radio listenership during the summer, the survey indicated that 19.7 per cent of the population did not have a preferred station. This signalled that a substantial number of people changed frequency to satisfy their tastes and did not listen to just one station.

However, the most popular station was Super One Radio, with 15.3 per cent, followed by Radju Malta (10.5 per cent) Bay Radio (9.6 per cent), RTK (9.2 per cent) and Smash Radio (8.2 per cent).

On radio as well as on television, news and current affairs programmes remained the most popular (87.9 per cent). The second most popular genre was music programmes, at 85.8 per cent, followed by health and beauty (68.2 per cent), religious (59 per cent) and discussion programmes (52.9 per cent).

The first-ever audience survey carried out during the summer months indicates that fewer people watch television in summer, and are more likely to listen to radio, mostly in their cars or on a beach.

Compared to other studies conducted by the authority, television viewing was slightly lower during this period at 97.1 per cent. In April 2003, the percentage of the population watching television regularly was 99.4 per cent, while in October 2003, 99.3 per cent watched television regularly.

Whereas the radio audience mostly listens to local stations, people watch foreign television stations, especially Italian ones, and not just local ones. Italia Uno was the most watched of these with 7.9 per cent of viewers, followed by Rai Uno, watched by 6.2 per cent of the Maltese.

The NSO officials indicated that viewership in summer 2004 was influenced by four main events, local and international. Radios and televisions had widely covered the European Parliament elections and the local councils elections in June, while on an international level the European Cup finals and the Olympic Games were also widely followed here.

BA chairman Joseph Said Pullicino said the report was not surprisingly different from other surveys conducted by the authority.

The new methods employed by the NSO to gather data on audience preferences ruled out the risk that producers knew in advance when the survey would be conducted as data was collected on a daily basis.

From now on, in fact, the NSO will be continuously gathering data and publishing results on a quarterly basis. Audience data is collected on a daily basis through telephone interviews with 2,000 respondents.